Missouri Disabled Veteran License Plate

The Missouri disabled veteran plate is narrower than nearly every published description of it, and the gap is large enough to send people to the licence office for nothing. Section 301.071 allows the plate to a person who has served in the Armed Forces of the United States, has been honorably discharged or separated, and who satisfies one of two tests: a service-connected disability "of such a nature that it would, if it had been incurred in service, have entitled him to be awarded an automobile by the United States Federal Government", or who "is receiving compensation from the Veterans Administration for total service connected disability". The first test points at the federal automobile and adaptive equipment grant in 38 U.S.C. 3901 and 3902, which is confined to loss or permanent loss of use of a foot or a hand, permanent impairment of vision of both eyes to a prescribed degree, and, for adaptive equipment purposes, severe burn injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It is a short list of specific impairments, not a rating percentage. The second test is compensation at the total rate. That reaches a veteran rated 100 percent and, on the ordinary reading of "receiving compensation for total service connected disability", a veteran paid at the total rate through individual unemployability, although the section does not say so in terms. What the section does not reach is a veteran with an ordinary service-connected rating below total whose disability is not one of the automobile-grant impairments. Descriptions of the Missouri plate as available to "honorably discharged resident Veterans who have a service-connected disability" are materially wrong, and a veteran at 30 or 60 percent will be turned away. The fee rule is in section 301.075. There is no fee charged for one set of plates issued to an eligible person. A second or subsequent set is subject to regular registration fees and to the personalised plate fee under section 301.144. So the free plate is one set, and the section is old enough that it predates the general military plate rule described below. Section 301.072 governs how the application is made, and the Department of Revenue asks for a VA letter dated within six months. The wheelchair accessibility symbol is a separate matter requiring a physician's statement on Form 1776, and a disabled veteran plate without that symbol does not carry disabled parking privileges. Contrast section 301.3030, which governs military plates generally. No special licence plate involving military actions or personnel may require a special fee for issuance or personalisation of one set issued to a qualified applicant, and for any military plate authorised after August 28, 2006 there is no limit on the number of plates a qualified person may obtain, so long as each set is issued for a vehicle owned solely or jointly by that applicant. A veteran who qualifies for a newer military plate can therefore plate several vehicles at no special-plate cost, while the disabled veteran plate from 1977 remains a one-set benefit.